Search form

LAWRENCE, KS—KU School of Music faculty member James Higdon, professor of organ, will present an organ recital on Friday, May 3, 2013 at 7:30 pm at Bales Organ Recital Hall at the Lied Center of Kansas.

Higdon’s performance will highlight the works of American composer Leo Sowerby, including “Comes Autumn Time” and “Fantasy for Flute Stops.”

This event is free and open to the public.

About James Higdon
James Higdon is the Dane and Polly Bales Professor of Organ at the University of Kansas. He earned a Bachelor of Music degree in organ from St. Olaf College, a Master of Music degree from Northwestern University and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Eastman School of Music. He has studied with Edmund Ladouceur, Robert Kendall, Karel Paukert, David Craighead and Catharine Crozier. He has also studied in France with Marie-Claire Alain.

Higdon's recordings include: “Duprí: A Centennial Tribute” (Pro Organo), recorded at St. Paul's Anglican Church, Toronto, Canada; “Organ Music of France” and “Camille Saint Saëns” (Arkay), both recorded on the 1879 Cavaillé-Coll organ at St. François-de-Sales, Lyon, France; and “Jehan Alain: Complete Works for Organ” (RBW). He is also featured on two recordings with the renowned Kansas City Chorale - "Nativitas" and "Alleluia: An American Hymnal," recorded on the Nimbus label. Most recently, he released “Music from Bales Organ Recital Hall” (DCD Records), the inaugural recording of the new Hellmuth Wolff organ in the Bales Organ Recital Hall at the University of Kansas.

Recent European concert tours include recitals at Notre Dame Cathedral, La Madeleine and Saint Étienne-du-Mont in Paris; St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna; Chartres Cathedral and concerts and master classes in Germany, Prague and Poland and Russia. Significant American recitals include appearances at four regional conventions of The American Guild of Organists. He has performed the premières of three commissioned works for organ by American Composers:

Epistrophe: A Sonata in Four Movements for Organ - Samuel Adler, 1992

Three Temperaments - Stephen Paulus, 1996

Trelugue, Peccatas and Feuds - Music for a Reverberant Space - James Mobberley, 1997

The University of Kansas presented Higdon with a W.T. Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence at the beginning of the 1997-1998 academic year. He was the first University of Kansas professor from the arts to be recognized with this prestigious award. He has had six students win Fulbright Awards and two students awarded International Rotary Grants during his tenure at the University of Kansas.

James Higdon is also active as an adjudicator. He recently served on juries for numerous international organ playing competitions: Calgary North American Finals (Atlanta); International Organ Playing Competition (Erfurt, Germany); the Concours International d’orgue de la ville Biarritz: Prix André Marchal (Biarritz, France); the Concours internationaux de la Ville de Paris; the Canadian International Organ Competition (Montréal); the Taraverdiev International Organ Competition (Moscow and Kaliningrad) and the Concours de Granes Orgues de Chartres. In 2011 he served on the juries of the Tariveridiev International Organ Competition (Russia) and the Canadian International Organ Competition (Montréal).

For more information, contact the KU School of Music at 785-864-3436. music.ku.edu.